Immunity
by rueyeet
Summary: Only Dib can solve the mystery of the countless murders that are plaguing the city. Will he live to tell the tale?
1. Chapter One

Invader ZIM/JtHM crossover. Not appropriate for children due to violence (duh!) and language.

As always, the characters in this work of fanfiction were appropriated with neither the consent nor approval of their original creator, Jhonen Vasquez, or copyright holders Slave Labor or Nickelodeon.

* * *

IMMUNITY: Chapter One  
by rueyeet 

No one ever believed him.

After so many years, he should have been used to it. His best chance to show everyone--the world, his classmates, his father--that he wasn't some lunatic chasing urban legends and old wives' tales had vanished in a truly spectacular explosion the day that he'd finally cornered Zim. Even the megalomaniacal little alien had had to admit that he was finally, inescapably caught. Unfortunately, Dib hadn't known that the Irken military thoughtfully provided all of their soldiers with a self-destruct device. He'd only just had time to dodge behind the empty lunch counter before half the cafeteria was taken out by the blast, leaving not so much as a trace of Zim's existence, not even a bit of residue for samples. Stunned, he'd stood rooted until it occurred to him that all of the advanced alien technology Zim's base offered was his for the taking. Dib had run all the way to his enemy's lair. Apparently the Irken Empire had thought of that, too. It was all gone--the house, the underground secret base, even the gnomes. Only some rough holes in the ground and in the walls of the neighbors' houses gave any evidence that anything had been there at all. That--and a screw-like device about the size of his fist.

He'd never managed to figure out what it was or what it did, aside from the homing signal. He imagined that Zim's beloved Tallest had probably thrown one heck of a party upon receiving that particular transmission, though. Of GIR, there was never any trace.

Life after that had been pretty much like life had been before Zim came to Earth: a constant struggle against the doubt and ignorance of everyone around him, without a single real hope of ever being able to prove them wrong. At least, not unless the Irken Empire suddenly changed its mind and decided to be interested in Earth. Part of him hoped that they would. He'd come to look at those few years of his life as the good old days.

Dib had certainly tried to pursue his dream of becoming a paranormal investigator, but it had become progressively, painfully clear that it wasn't the kind of thing that kept a roof over one's head. Still, it had given him a wide range of what other people saw as "marketable skills," so he was able to land a job in the city forensics department, combining his knowledge of science and investigative techniques to do something that would make a real difference. He had introduced new methods and technologies that had streamlined the department's operations, radically improved the accuracy and speed of DNA analysis, and teased admissible evidence from even the smallest traces. Yet, vexingly, he wasn't held in any higher respect for this, even if they recognized his intelligence. He was still weird mad-scientist Dib, puttering away in the lab until the wee hours of the night, appropriating the department's resources for his own personal research.

Not tonight, though. Tonight the usual freakish creatures and reports of alien sightings were not his concern. Dib was tantalizingly close to finding the person responsible for the citywide killing spree that had left so many victims so messily, sickeningly dead.

Dib couldn't quite remember when he'd become so obsessed with the case. There had been a point where he realized, over yet another solitary lunch in the corner of the break room, that nothing from any of the killings--and by then, there had been a staggering number of them--had come through the lab. Asking around, he'd discovered that no one seemed to be in charge of the investigation, though everyone had plenty of speculation to offer. Bit by bit he had begun to collect the files, asking people if they minded if he took a look, or simply rifling through their overflowing inboxes after hours. Those files now occupied an alarming amount of space in the spare filing cabinet in the back corner of his cramped little office. After it occurred to him to look, he had found that the number of missing person reports had risen dramatically as well.

At first, he'd been unable to understand why nothing had been done. How could everyone just ignore that many murders? As he digested the information, though, the apparent negligence became clearer. The sheer volume of incidents had made proper investigation practically impossible. The morgue couldn't keep up, so autopsies were not performed; often the only documentation of an incident was the initial police report. And the locations, circumstances, and victims were so random that there were simply no leads. There was no M.O., either--the killings had been performed with such an astonishing variety of weapons and implements that no pattern could be inferred. In fact, other than the sheer volume of deaths, there was nothing to indicate any link between incidents at all. It was as if the city had suddenly become home to a convention of deranged spree killers.

In short, no one had done anything because no one knew what could possibly be done.

Next to this, his preoccupation with the world's many unresolved mysteries paled. Next to a full-scale alien assault, this was the most real and immediate threat he'd ever seen. Maybe more so--everyone these days knew someone who knew someone else who had fallen to this mysterious predator. And he was the only person, apparently, who was in a position to do anything about it. Dib hadn't felt so vital, so alive since he had been the only thing standing between Earth and the might of the Irken Armada.

And so he went to work. He visited the sites of the killings in his off hours, picking up even the tiniest fragment that might provide a clue so long after the crime scene crews were gone. He went down to the morgue and examined the more recent corpses, taking what notes and samples he could. He analyzed every bit of hair, every partial print, every fiber, every particle of every substance he had collected. He entered the data into the systems he had devised, looking for connections. And slowly, ever so slowly, he was able to draw a few fragile conclusions.

The murder weapon was often improvised, like the spork used in the infamous Taco Hell incident. Anything and everything became a tool of violence, or was modified to the purpose. Curiously, though, only a few of the murders involved guns. The victims had been dispatched in endless permutations--stabbed, slashed, beaten, bludgeoned, gouged, strangled, maimed, blown up, and even tortured--but only very, very rarely had they been shot. At least not with a gun--there were several incidents involving a bow and arrows.

However, there did seem to be a marked trend towards the use of knives. The same two knives, in fact--what autopsies had been done supported this, and Dib had added some of his own examinations to be sure.

Most of the fibers Dib had been able to pick up from the victims that did not match to their own clothing were black. He began increasingly to feel like the similarities he was uncovering were not coincidence; that a pattern was emerging.

Only a few of the victims had been sexually assaulted, a depredation that was often associated with serial killers. That had been the most uncomfortable expertise Dib had had to acquire to pursue this case. As he refined his data mining with further details, he found that the sharp implements those unfortunate souls had been slain with were not the same knives favored in so many of the other killings. In fact, the marks left by these blades were very unique. Dib swallowed nausea. Someone out there had designed tools specifically for this. Those incidents had started somewhere over a year ago, and ceased several months later.

He was coming more and more to the conclusion, however improbable, that the same individual was responsible for all of the innumerable deaths the city had seen in this wave of killings. This person dressed in concealing black, yet routinely left bodies out in the open and sometimes even killed in broad daylight. Such carelessness could point to a desire to be caught, or to general stupidity, or perhaps to insanity; yet the range of lethal implements used pointed to no small amount of creativity, and sometimes even to a macabre sense of humor. Only the sexually motivated killings didn't quite seem to fit.

He'd tried to discuss this theory with his colleagues, only to have it dismissed as just more random speculation. No one was willing to have a serious conversation on the subject, and people seemed to forget the details as soon as he'd shared them. Soon he gave up.

Tonight he would finally see if he was right. He had finally collected enough samples from enough different incidents for a meaningful DNA analysis.

Carefully, he fed the samples into the computer one by one, logging each one with the incident numbers he had assigned. He went to make another pot of coffee while the system isolated the DNA sequences and collated the vast amounts of data. After what seemed like an interminable wait, the results were available.

There were a mere _two _distinct DNA profiles across the entire set of incidents! He was right! And--yes--he saw that one of the profiles was associated almost solely with the sexually motivated incidents. A copycat, then. It occurred to Dib that the cessation of such incidents might not be fortunate coincidence. But--more or less--he was right!

From here it would be possible to begin to track the two perpetrators down. Dib quickly requested a probable physical description from the DNA workups. According to the computer, both suspects would be of average height and light build, dark of hair and eyes. Not unlike himself, Dib thought wryly. He told the computer to run the DNA, prints, descriptions, and other physical evidence against the national crime databases. Fidgeting with impatience, he absently sorted through his files as the request was processed.

The sky outside grew discernibly lighter as he waited. The early birds would be into work within the hour. Damn it, he didn't want to have to wait another night for this! It wasn't his fault the FBI's servers were slow! _Come on_, he silently implored the computer, _come on..._Finally the computer bleeped in success. Quickly, Dib skimmed the results.

The second suspect, the one who'd molested his victims, was most likely one James ---. From what the query had been able to pull, he was your standard troubled kid with a record of disciplinary incidents and socialization issues who had proven unable to form satisfactory relationships in his adult life. Not much mystery there. Dime a dozen. Interestingly, a missing person report had been filed on him around the same time the associated killings had stopped. Apparently his mom had noticed when he didn't come home to his room in her basement. That case remained officially unsolved, but the routine DNA sample collected from his room matched. Dib smiled grimly to himself. Looked like Mr. ---- wouldn't be giving anyone any more trouble, and at zero taxpayer cost.

For the primary suspect, however, there was nothing. Not a single sealed juvenile record, not a single arrest warrant or traffic stop. As far as the world of law enforcement was concerned, he didn't exist. It was as if the guy had gone from being a perfectly law-abiding citizen to an amazingly prolific spree killer overnight. Dib shook his head, incredulous. Such a thing was unheard of. No one went from having no previous issues, no record, no nothing, to..._that_. There were almost always indications, red flags, _something_, once all the records were available.

But there weren't any. There was nothing at all.

His enthusiasm deflated, Dib sat back from the computer. He chewed absently on the end of his pen, deep in thought. It looked as if the rest of the case would have to be solved the old-fashioned way. He'd focused first on the forensic analysis, but there was more than one way to track down a suspect. It didn't take long to bring up the locations of his carefully numbered incident files and feed them into the department's geographical information system. In short order, he had a map of the city splattered in red dots, one for the site of each killing. Sure enough, though no part of the city had been completely neglected, there were definite areas of higher density. Dib outlined those areas, then printed out the map. Now they'd know where to look. The rest was a matter of some legwork by the detectives, and they'd put this murderer behind bars where he belonged, or maybe in a padded cell. Dib wasn't normally the vengeful sort, but he thought that if ever there was a case for the death penalty, this would be it.

The biggest case of the last five years, and he'd all but solved it! He imagined the detectives telling the TV crews how they'd never have caught the suspect without him, imagined himself interviewed on the nightly news. The city would be restored to the relative peace it had known before the killings began, and all due to his hard work and insight. In his mind's eye, a series of promotions was quickly followed by the revival of his paranormal career, respect in his true field...perhaps even the host spot for Mysterious Mysteries!

Hearing footsteps in the hallway, Dib shook himself out of his self-congratulatory reverie. He quickly made backups of his work for home, and logged out not a moment too soon. Before he could be forced to explain himself to anyone, he dodged out the other door and away. He'd write everything up over the next few days, and then they'd all see.

* * *

It was strange to drive home and realize that his customary route led through one of the killer's most heavily targeted areas. It was even worse to have to stop for gas right where the dots were most thickly congregated. Dib hurried through the transaction, wishing that the gas would pump itself faster, looking nervously around. 

And then Dib saw him.

Across the street and down a building or two was a convenience store. Incredulous at his luck, Dib watched the thin man exit the store, sipping a drink; watched him stop and eye the loiterers outside distrustfully, hand straying towards the backpack he carried. Dib held his breath. The man fit the first DNA profile perfectly, and was clad head to toe in black. More than that, his every movement--the focused intensity of his gaze, and the readiness in his stance--set off every instinct honed through Dib's many years of chasing paranormal phenomena. The group outside the store glanced at the man, and away. Dib watched his hand come away from the backpack, and fish in his pocket for keys as he started to walk to his car.

Hastily Dib turned back to his own car. Seeing it fully fueled, he grabbed the receipt and got the car started as fast as he could. He pulled out, cutting someone off, and craned his head around, looking for the dingy and much dented gray hatchback. Luckily, his target had gotten stopped a couple of lights ahead, and he was able to follow the suspect into the downtown area, park nearby, and trail him down the street without being spotted.

Or so he thought. However, when he rounded the corner and looked at the sparse crowds still out after closing time, the killer had vanished. Dib couldn't figure out where he could have gotten to, not with so little cover. He waited a while, walking back and forth along the stretch of street where he'd last seen the man, but eventually had to give up. After one last look around, Dib walked back to his car. The caffeine's effects had faded, and disappointment conspired with fatigue so that he was suddenly exhausted. He drove home, threw himself into bed without bothering to undress, and was sound asleep in seconds flat.

The next several days blurred into each other, lack of sleep making it seem to Dib as if he was merely repeating the same day over and over. Each morning, the alarm roused him from fitful dreams of toe-tagged corpses silently shaking blood-splashed maps at him amidst a whirling storm of papers. Each morning, he got in late, and once at work, a dozen other cases demanded his attention. Coffee mug by his side, Dib waded his way through each day's lab work, returning to writing up his report on the mysterious killer the moment the last of his co-workers had left the lab. With painstaking care, he presented his theory, arranging the most relevant and convincing details so that no one could possibly dispute his conclusion.

Each night, when he could concentrate no more, he drove downtown and wandered around, hoping for a glimpse of the thin young man he'd seen before. Dib was all but certain that this person was the perpetrator of all of the dreadful murders so clinically discussed in his report. He knew that he should wait, that he should leave this sort of thing to the detectives and field agents, but he felt such an oppressive sense of urgency that he couldn't help himself. Maybe it was the dreams.

Dib couldn't have said how many days had passed before he saw his suspect again. Catching his breath, he swiftly tucked himself into a doorway as the man passed him, carrying the same backpack, headphones leaking the noises of music played too loud. Dib edged out and followed after, weaving through the crowds as he tried to keep the man in sight. Despite his best efforts, he lost his quarry again. He sighed, and walked back to his car.

As he unlocked the door, he heard a voice behind him. How could anyone have gotten so close without him hearing footsteps?

"Hello."

Dib's vision exploded in stars that faded quickly into the dark of unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter Two

Invader ZIM/JtHM crossover. Not appropriate for children due to violence (duh!) and language.

As always, the characters in this work of fanfiction were appropriated with neither the consent nor approval of their original creator, Jhonen Vasquez, or copyright holders Slave Labor or Nickelodeon.

* * *

IMMUNITY: Chapter Two  
by rueyeet 

When Dib came to, the first thing he was conscious of was the restraints, and the awkward position they bound him in. The second thing he was aware of was the smell--old blood, and the subdued but pervasive scent of things rotting, like a morgue without the antiseptics. He looked groggily around, trying to figure out where he was, and saw the device to which he was strapped. It was like something out of a nightmare, a machine medievally brutal in its intention, but lovingly complicated in its design. Its many razor sharp points were aimed menacingly towards him, widening gradually from tip to base with gleaming precision. Terror sent adrenaline surging through him, and he struggled instinctively against the straps.

"Ah. I see you're awake," said a cheerful voice. "Careful...if you move around too much, you might set that thing off."

Dib froze mid-struggle, and looked up at his captor in the dim light. The professional part of him ticked off the details--mid-20's, possibly of Hispanic descent, blue-black hair, dark eyes, medium height, painfully thin, no obvious distinguishing marks--while the more atavistic part of his brain took in the unblinking stare and too-wide grin, making Dib want most urgently to back away. He edged away as best he could, but the cold metal of the device provided no reassurance. "Wh...what do you want?" His voice sounded high and shrill in his own ears, and he tried to get himself under some kind of control.

"Want?" repeated the man, cocking his head quizzically to the side. "What a peculiar question. Weren't you the one following me? What do _you_ want?"

Dib stared at him, trying to formulate a non-confrontational answer. What _had_ he been thinking, to try pursuing this suspect on his own? He was a lab worker, not a homicide detective or a patrol officer; he wasn't trained to handle this kind of thing! He felt like a complete idiot. "Um. Now that you mention it...I'm not really sure."

The murderer laughed at that. "No? Well, that's okay. Actually, I don't care." He got up from the crate on which he sat and began to pace the floor. "What I really want to know is how you were able to do it."

"How?" Dib echoed stupidly.

"Yes, how." Abruptly the killer ceased his pacing, turning around to face Dib. "It shouldn't be possible. I can't be caught, you see. I could take you out right now, into a crowded street in broad daylight, and dismember you at my leisure, and absolutely nothing would come of it." As he spoke, he came closer, scrutinizing Dib intently, his voice becoming more and more impassioned. "Oh, sure, people would run or scream or vomit or whatever. The police might even show up, eventually. But I'd still get away with it. Because I can't be stopped! I am invincible."

Dib shuddered at the absolute conviction in the man's words. So it was insanity, not stupidity or hidden remorse, that made him so careless. Dib felt hopelessness well within him. There was no reasoning with the insane.

"So," his captor went on, halting in front of him and fixing him with that intense stare, "what I want to know is how _you_, out of everyone else in this world, could have found me. I want to know it _all._" He paused thoughtfully. "Usually I don't require people to talk to me--quite the opposite, actually--but I think we'll manage, don't you?" His skeletal hands reached for something out of Dib's line of vision. "I was just kidding, before. You can't set this off, exactly; it's more of a gradual thing. See, it works something...like..._this_."

The device shuddered into motion, the sharp edges jerking closer to Dib with each of the killer's words, until the barest tips dug into his body, all of them at the same time, like the pricking of dozens of needles. They hadn't gone deep enough to do serious damage, not yet, but Dib couldn't hold back a strangled noise of terror and pain. He tried not to think of what those blades would do to him as they sunk deeper, slicing him open further as they went. All the coroner's reports he had recently read came back to him, and it was all he could do not to hear his own, running through his head in a grisly litany of lacerated organs and severed arteries.

In a moment of sudden and terrible clarity, he remembered something Gaz had said, years and years ago, when he'd questioned her casual attitude towards Zim's attempt to deliver the Earth to the Irken Empire: "But he's so _bad_ at it."

This slight young man before him, this incarnation of violence itself, was very, very good indeed at what he did. Dib saw now that in all of the small battles with his alien nemesis, he had never truly been in mortal danger, however outrageous things had seemed at the time. He thought of all of his meticulously organized incident files, catalogued with times and dates and causes of death, and saw the other side of those clinical descriptions of agony and mutilation; saw, with dismaying certainty, that he was about to become one of them.

And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He was completely helpless.

"Okay! ...okay." Dib drew a ragged breath, trying not to breathe too deeply against the painful pressure of the device. Maybe he could play for time, at least. "How did I find you? I...I just correlated all the available information, that's all."

The killer made an exasperated noise, keeping his hands on whatever controlled the device. "Details, please."

"I...no one had done anything, so I took the files, I took all the reports and the evidence and samples and everything." Dib knew he was speaking too fast, and not entirely coherently, but he couldn't seem to help it. "You know, prints and DNA and all that stuff. And then I put it all together, ran the DNA, put all the...incidents...on a map, and figured out where the patterns were, and, well...there you were."

"That easy, huh?" The thin man sat back and shook his head, looking at him as if in wonder. "I take it that when you mention evidence, you mean you work for the police. Who are you, exactly?"

Dib hesitated, but seeing those hands reach for the device again, he unwillingly answered. "City forensics department. Dib Membrane."

"That rings a bell. Wait...Professor Membrane? I think I've seen reruns of that show."

"Yeah, I'm his son." Dib said, not bothering to keep the bitterness from his voice.

"Hmm." The other man seemed intrigued by this information. For a long moment he considered, staring off into the distance as if his attention were elsewhere. Suddenly he smiled again, seeming to come to a decision. He reversed the device's progress with one deft twist. Dib gasped as the blades swiftly withdrew themselves from his body, leaving behind small bleeding holes in their wake. "Well, Mr.-not-Professor Membrane, I am Johnny C. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he added in oddly formal tone touched with irony.

Dib wasn't sure how to interpret that, and made what he hoped was a non-committal noise in reply.

"Well. You're a scientist, so I'm sure you won't mind helping me in a little experiment. Allow me to explain." Johnny took up his seat on the crate once more, resting his chin on his clasped hands, regarding him with that same intent look. "I'm going to let you go. And I want you to go back to the police, and tell them all about me. Who I am, where I live, all your evidence and DNA and 'stuff'...the whole thing."

"You're kidding." Dib stared at him in disbelief.

"Not at all, " said Johnny, springing up from his crate and going to a nearby table that had a number of knives stuck into it. "That's exactly what I want you to do. Thing is, if I let you go, can I trust you to do that for me?" He looked back at Dib, doubt shadowing his glance, hand on one of the knives. Its tip was sunk at least an inch into the tabletop. Dib saw that the pommel was incongruously painted with a smiley face.

"I...yeah! Sure," Dib said shakily. "I was just about to turn in my report tomorrow, actually...You're really going to just let me go?"

Johnny laughed again; Dib had not succeeded in hiding either his incredulity or his hope. "Yes, I am. I'll even take you back to your car, if you want. Though I do warn you; if you do anything I don't like on the way, I can always change my mind." He twisted the knife out of the tabletop with frightening ease, leaving a gouge in the wood, and carelessly spun it in his hand as he approached the device. "I don't think I need to tell you to hold still," he said lightly, pointing the knife momentarily in Dib's direction before undoing the straps one by one. Dib fell to the floor as the last one came away, gasping at the tingling pain of blood returning to his starved limbs. When he was able to stand, he saw that Johnny had wrenched a second knife from the table, and was pointing with it to the door.

"How will I contact you?" Dib asked, hoping to glean some additional information.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll find you. Out you go," he said, still in that same merry humor. Dib said nothing in reply, and simply went where he was directed. He couldn't believe it! This psychopath was letting him go, was allowing him to see that he was brought to justice! Maybe he _did _want to be caught, after all. Obediently, he followed Johnny up through room after room, stair after stair. In his relief at escaping, he didn't think to wonder at how many of them there were. True to his word, Johnny drove him back to the 24-7, and let him out of the car, waving cheerfully as Dib ran to his own car and drove away as if all the demons of hell were pursuing him.

* * *

Dib surprised himself by falling into a heavy sleep once he was home safe in his own bed, but was just as relieved to be spared any additional nightmares. True to his word, he got in to work much earlier than usual to make sure that his report was finished in time to be at the top of the pile on his supervisor's desk that day. Sure enough, sometime after lunch Dib was summoned to her office. She told him to close the door, and did not invite him to sit down. Dib was too excited to care. 

"Dib. About this report..."

Caught up in the urgency of relating his discoveries, Dib missed the long-suffering look, the weary sigh. "Yes, I know. It's incredible, isn't it? All this time, it's just been one person! Well, two, technically, but mostly just the one. And now we have everything we need--"

"Dib." His supervisor cut him off, more firmly this time. "Look. You do good work, so I've been willing to overlook the late hours, and the use of department facilities for your...own particular interests. But it's out of control. You're obsessed, Dib! Do you really believe that _one_ person could commit that many murders, and get away with it? What do you think he's doing with all the bodies we don't recover, burying them in his lawn? You don't think the neighbors would _notice_ that kind of thing?"

"But I was about to tell you! It's true, I saw him! I have a name, a location, everything."

She fixed him with a skeptical gaze, eyebrow raised. "You're telling me you went out in the field, all by yourself, to go after this suspect of yours?"

"Well..." Dib faltered. "Sort of, yes. But--"

"Sort of? Are you completely ignorant of department policy? Do you think you're better qualified than our people who are out there every day? Than the officers who are trained specifically for this?"

"N-no, ma'am." he got out. This wasn't going at all the way he had imagined.

"Look, Dib. You've obviously done a lot with this, and maybe you could write a book or something--but what you do NOT have is a case. The last thing I need is another call from the FBI complaining that we're tying up their servers again for your own personal amusement, or a failure to convict because you've screwed up an investigation." She went on before Dib could object. "I'll tell you what I think. I think you've been working too hard. I think you need some time off. As of today, you are taking a week of administrative leave. Paid leave, out of consideration for you not filing for overtime for all those late hours."

"But I told you! I saw him, he caught me, _look_ at what he did to me!" Dib yanked his sleeves back to reveal the evenly spaced series of puncture wounds left from his encounter with Johnny. "He had some kind of torture device down there, right in his house, and--"

She sucked in a breath, expression changing from annoyance and pity to alarm. Severely, she said, "That's just going too far, Dib. I can appreciate that you feel undervalued, but there are far more constructive ways to get attention. I'm going to have to put you in for some counseling. We don't want to lose you, Dib, but I think you have some serious issues."

Dib could only stare at her, stunned.

"Go on home, okay? Get the world's problems off your mind for a while. I'll set everything up, and send you the papers at home. Take some time to sort things out. And when you come back, I want to see you focused on department priorities. Are we clear?"

Numbly, Dib nodded, and left. Collecting his briefcase and avoiding the speculative stares of his co-workers, he retreated back to his apartment.

They hadn't believed him.

* * *

"So. How did it go?" 

Dib started as Johnny seemed to materialize within the shadows of a nearby alley, beckoning to him. He had been walking aimlessly through the streets of the city, trying to dispel his crushing disappointment, and failing. Reluctantly, he complied with the invitation; he doubted that refusal was an option anyway. "They...they..." He found he couldn't say it.

"Yes? They what?" Johnny's fingers tapped on his folded arms with impatience.

"They didn't believe me." The words came out in a rush, and Dib found himself giving vent to the tension that had gathered within him all day. "It was all right there in the report, and they read it and everything! But they didn't believe it. They said that I was jumping to conclusions. That I just wanted some attention. They put me on _leave!_ I showed my supervisor what you did to me, and she's sending me to counseling! _Counseling_, for fuck's sake!"

"They didn't believe you," said Johnny wonderingly. It wasn't a question.

"No," said Dib bitterly. "No one ever does. I don't even know why I'm even surprised anymore. I thought that surely this time...it was so obvious! But no. I just _never_ get a break!"

"You say no one ever believes you?" Johnny inquired. Dib was too involved in his own self-pity to notice the curious insistence in his voice, and launched into a recital of all the contemptuous dismissals, all the disbelieving slights, all the insults, and all the humiliations that he had suffered ever since he could remember. The frustration of a lifetime escaped him in a flood, and he paced back and forth and gestured wildly as he ranted. After the first minute or two, Johnny took a precarious seat on a broken chair, listening very closely, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and fascination. Dib didn't care. He just wanted to tell someone who would listen, for once. If it had to be a deranged murderer, so be it.

"...and now this." Dib ended on a plaintive note, his hands held up in bewilderment. "They just never listen to me, no matter what I do."

"No, I guess they don't." Johnny grinned, and pointed a single finger at him. "And that's it!"

Nonplussed, Dib shook his head. "That's what?"

Johnny leapt up from the chair and held his hands wide. "That's why you were able to find me. See? I was right! I can't be caught! It's true...I _am _invincible!" He hugged his arms to himself with a beatific and exultant smile.

Still confused, Dib said shakily, "I don't get it. What does that have to do with anything?"

The psychopath looked at him then, and his expression took on a slight sadness. "Because no one would believe you," he said simply. "I can't be caught. You...well, you can't be believed."

Dib stared at him, feeling a scream welling up from somewhere deep within him. Johnny's words had the unmistakable ring of truth. The long years of striving and frustration, everything he had just recounted to this lunatic, all of it--it all suddenly broke inside Dib, and sent him at Johnny with balled fists and a scream of rage. Johnny scrambled out of the way of Dib's clumsy swing, and his eyes turned cold with frightening speed. Before Dib could try again, Johnny had him around the throat in a vise-like grip and slammed him up against the wall of the alley, a bottle appearing in his thin hand as if summoned. His face distorted in fury, Johnny rapped the bottle sharply against the wall. The glass shattered, and he raised the broken end menacingly.

Dib was going to die this time; he was sure of it. And he couldn't find it in himself to care. The frustration within him tangled itself with despair until he didn't know one from the other, and he stared back at his captor, unable to do anything but wait for the lethal blow that would end his misery.

Abruptly, Johnny let him go. Dib staggered forward and managed to regain his balance. The killer watched impassively from a short distance away, arms crossed.

"Why...?" Dib gasped out, his throat tingling painfully as blood flowed back to the bruised skin.

Johnny laughed, a short, bitter sound. "I don't do mercy." His smile twisted, and he turned and walked away.

Dib sank slowly down to sit against the wall behind him, absently massaging his throat, and stared unseeing at the pavement. A single thought reverberated through his mind, over and over.

_They'll never believe me.  
_

END_  
_

* * *

"America hates Dib."--frequently repeated throughout the Invader Zim DVD commentary. :) 

An illustration of that last scene by the fabulous Crow-Sensei can be found at www(dot)deviantart(dot)com(slash)deviation(slash)18816820(slash)


End file.
